The default IP (Internet Protocol) port number used by web servers for web (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) transactions is port 80. Requests that come into a web server at port 80 often result in returning an HTML (HyperText Markup Language) page to a client web browser. Port 80 requests may also call a CGI (Common Gateway Interface) script, ISAPI (Internet Server Application Program Interface) or ASP (Active Server Pages) process, a server-side include (SSI) or a Java servlet, all of which perform some process in the web server and then typically return an HTML page with the results. A request coming into port 80 may result in any file being copied from the web server to the requesting client.
Many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) prohibit a web server from being operated by users to regulate bandwidth consumed by a user. In particular, users are prevented from serving up a web page and web services from their home by blocking incoming traffic to port 80 before the traffic reaches a user's client machine.
Thus, a heretofore unaddressed need exists in the industry to address the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.